


filling in the gaps

by sunsetozier



Series: too good to be true [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Death, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Gore, M/M, Some angst, empty world missing scenes, it dies, slightly gorey descriptions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:14:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27311722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetozier/pseuds/sunsetozier
Summary: A bitter taste forms on Richie’s tongue. “Adjust to being normal again, you mean?”“Rich…” Eddie trails off, his brows furrowing together as he shakes his head, hands reaching up to cup Richie’s face in his palms. “The hell do you wanna be normal for, huh? Normalsucks.”-empty world missing scenes
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Audra Phillips, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon/Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier & Everyone, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris
Series: too good to be true [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970677
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	filling in the gaps

**Author's Note:**

> there were more missing scenes i wanted to add that include them adopting their kids and stuff, but i really liked how it felt the end it where i did. however, i might post a second chapter sometime in november to cover a few more missing scenes that i want to include.
> 
> also - dec 24, christmas eve, there will be an alternate ending that i'm going to post. after that, empty world will be officially complete.
> 
> happy two year anniversary to chapter three of empty world <3

_you’re just too good to be true_

_can’t take my eyes off of you_

For a long moment, Richie doesn’t move.

The sound echoes down the empty halls, bounces off the walls and seems to reverberate within his ear drums, and he’s frozen, stuck in place, the gun feeling, quite sudden, far too heavy in his hands as he holds it, still pressed under his chin, aimed upright and ready to kill. His breath stutters in his chest, sticks in his lungs and thickens in his throat until he feels like he can’t breathe at all, and only then does he move, the gun slipping from his fingertips and clattering to the ground as he leaps to his feet, so quick, so fast, that it makes his head spin, but he doesn’t care. He’s moving before he even realizes he’s moving, forcing air through the pinhole available in his closing up throat and slamming into the walls in his haste to turn the corner and _launch_ himself down the stairs, practically jumping from the top and hoping for the best. He doesn’t register the shockwave of pain that rattles his ankles or his knees. It doesn’t matter.

It’s old, the phone—the same one they’ve had since he was twelve years old, been sitting here and collecting dust for twenty seven, almost twenty eight years, now. What was once a shiny black plastic is now dingy and coated with a layer of grime so thick that it’s like paint, sticks to his skin when he scrambled with the damn thing, fumbles with it in his hands in his haste before finally managing to press it to his ear, one hand clutching the receiver so hard he fear it may break, and his voice is nothing but a painful, raspy croak when he manages to choke out what should be a simple, “Hello?”

There’s a pause—short, uncertain, before: “Eddie?”

Richie’s knees buckle. Before he knows it, he’s sitting on the floor, leaning heavily against the old kitchen cabinets and struggling to gasp through the shock of hearing someone else’s voice—not from a vinyl, or a jukebox, or any of the movies he’s made himself sit down and watch by himself over the years, but real, raw, and on the other end of the line—for the first time since he was seventeen.

Mike Hanlon, the voice on the phone, goes on to say, “This isn’t Eddie.”

“It’s—” Richie has to stop, hunches over with a cough because he hasn’t spoken in so long, hasn’t felt the need to in years, but now he has no choice. He clears his throat, wishes he had his water bottle with him instead of in the car he drove here with, but he manages to get out, “I’m—Richie.”

This pause is more pregnant with tension, and Richie doesn’t know how he knows it’s Mike, because this is not the voice of the teenager that Richie knew, but he can feel it, somehow, deep within himself, soaking into his skin and sinking beneath his bones. He struggles to conjure up an image of the Mike he knew, pictures what he thinks Mike would look like now, can’t seem to get it right.

Thinks that, maybe, somehow, he’ll be able to see it himself.

“Richie?” Mike finally responds, voice almost as raspy as Richie’s with emotion, a waver to his words that clues in the tears he’s likely trying to swallow back down. “Is this some sick kind of joke?”

_“No,”_ Richie insists, the word more of a gasp than a sound. “No, no, no. It’s me. I’m real.”

He hears a voice, one that, no matter how many years it’s been or how much it’s aged, Richie could recognize anywhere, talking in the background. Mike responds, too muffled to understand, but the exclamation of disbelief that follows is loud enough to hear despite the phone being moved away. Richie almost grins at the familiarity of Stanley Uris and how he yells when he’s shocked. The feeling of his lips twitching up is far too odd to properly maintain. The smile never really develops—whatever was there takes only seconds to fall, and then he’s waiting, listening, aching, until Mike eventually, assumedly, brings his phone back up to his ear to ask, “Richie, where are you? I’m coming to get you.”

“Home,” Richie whispers. “I’m home.”

There’s no need to elaborate—Mike understands, somehow, without further explanation, and it’s only a few short minutes later before Richie finds himself staring down at the phone, dial tone fading into background noise as his mind tries to catch up with what just happened, tries to make sense of it, thinks—

_Is this even real?_

It has to be. Sure, Richie has purposefully conjured up some hallucinations over the years, has, on more than one occasion, forced himself to stay awake for days on end just to try and see his loved ones again, but nothing has ever been this real, this vivid—and it’s always been them as he remembers them. He always sees, hears, his friends as he last saw them, teenagers, high schoolers, tinny over the phone and unable to stop themselves from being too loud when they laughed too hard. Never before—never this.

But, how is it possible? What changed? Why, after twenty three years of being totally, completely alone, is this happening now? It’s not possible. It shouldn’t be possible. It can’t be.

He goes back to his room, once his knees stop shaking enough for his legs to feel more stable. There’s no real reason why—if this is real, then Mike will be here within ten minutes, but it feels necessary, something within him telling him that it’s something he needs to do. The gun is still laying on the carpet like it wasn’t pressed to the underside of his chin, like he wasn’t about to take his own life milliseconds before the phone rang, and the items, everything that reminds him of his friends, are gone, vanished, like they never existed at all. Hovering in the doorway, he sweeps his eyes around the room, searching for them, the polaroid, the flannel, the journal, the poetry book, the sketch book, the necklace, any of the items he’s been clutching onto for the sake of his sanity since the moment this all began, but he doesn’t find a sign of them anywhere. It clutches his chest, the panic that seizes him in the moment, but it’s gone as quickly as it came when his eyes land on the window and…

Cars, driving down the street. Kids playing on the sidewalk, riding their bikes, while adults, parents, sit on the porch, water the garden, mow the lawn. And, as his mind struggles to comprehend this, it’s like the outside world comes to life at once, sounds that he somehow hadn’t heard before filtering through the walls, laughter and voices and music and engines. Life, so much life—something he hasn’t seen in decades. People, living, existing, the way he remembers they did.

It’s more of a stumble than a step, but Richie finds his way back to the bed, sinks into the mattress with a heavy exhale as he continues to look out the window in blatant awe, not all that aware when his vision starts to blur at the edges, when things begin to feel hazy, far away—dream like.

He wonders, momentarily, why he isn’t crying.

The thought doesn’t linger.

_you’d be like heaven to touch_

_i wanna hold you so much_

(“It’s a nightmare,” Richie said—voice far too loud in the silence of the car he was sitting in, something old and run down and probably coming to the end of it’s use. His fingers were curled around the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles were white and his arms were visibly shaking, features pinched and skin flushed pale as he forced himself to inhale—shaky, at best, exhale not much better, teeth scraping over his lower lip, sinking in until he tasted copper. Only then, when blood was coating his tongue, did he release his lip and continue talking. “It has to be,” he told himself. “It _has to be.”_

Foot pressed down on the gas, the car speeding up, up, up—

A pot hole, or something, something, he didn’t see it, didn’t know—or, perhaps, he had glanced over it and found that he didn’t care if he hit it. His veins were on fire and burning with the copious amount of liquor he chugged at a bar off the highway some ways back, his stomach flipped when the car did, and he should have been terrified, should have screamed, hit the brakes, something.

All that came to mind as the word turned, the windows shattered and crunched beneath the metal that warped as it spun and twisted and flipped, flipped, flipped, was that—maybe, finally, he’d wake up from the hell he was living in. Maybe, he’d see them again—the losers. His friends. His family.

The scar, thankfully, was somewhere he could only see if he looked in the mirror, but it didn’t wake him up. There was nothing to wake up from, because it wasn’t a nightmare. He wasn’t asleep.

It was horribly, terrifyingly real.)

There are ten seconds of silence, of staring at the withered, battered body of what It truly was, in It’s true form, holding in their breaths and waiting—expecting, almost—for It to lurch to life and attack them again. But It doesn’t so much as twitch, black blood sluggishly pooling around It’s body, It’s heart laying within the center of the growing puddle of what looks like sludge, unmoving. It’s over.

Richie would have thought that Eddie would be the one to reach for him, and he very nearly is, head turning in Richie’s direction and fingers lifting in what seems to be the beginnings of raising his hand, but Bill, surprisingly, beats him to it—reaches over, over, grabs Richie’s wrist and tugs Richie into a firm embrace, a broken sort of sob ripping out of his throat that echoes like a shout in the sewers. Richie tenses, still, despite his best efforts, so wary of touch from anyone other than Eddie, but he melts into it without thinking, because—because this is them. All of the losers are his soulmates, whether it be platonic or more (the more, of course, being Eddie), and each of those bonds are for something different, something unique. Stan is the light to his shadows and the shadows to his light—they balance one another, Stan the voice of reason he was raised to be when Richie was borderline manic, and Richie the push towards childish enjoyment that Stan didn’t know how to let himself have. Mike is the calm to Richie’s restlessness, the smile and the nod and the simplistic way in which he always made Richie feel included and accepted when they were kids, and in turn, Richie was the one that Mike never felt the need to censor himself around, never had to worry being loud or rowdy with. Ben is the subtly to Richie’s flare, reminding him that he didn’t have to be bright and colorful all the time, that he could blend in with a crown without feeling pointless or alone, and Richie was the reminder that Ben didn’t have to hide himself, that he could be loud and proud and confident whenever he wanted to be, even if it was hard sometimes, even if it started by faking it until it was true. Beverly is his favorite childhood blanket and the comfort of a campfire in summer, or a hot drink dripping sweet in winter, flashing strobe lights and flickering candle flames all in one—right in step with Richie whenever they were together growing up, either just as rowdy as one another, or just as calm. The only person Richie has ever been able to sit in complete and utter silence with, not a single sound other than their own breaths, and not feel the need to fill the air with something. The substance was just in them, not in what they said or did.

Eddie is… everything, really. Always has been. The one who came over to Richie’s house during the few years that Went and Maggie were so consumed with the need to bring food to the table that they didn’t realize how valuable it was to be there to eat it, too, when Richie spent most nights in an empty house and feeling so alone, abandoned, by parents who loved him more than anything but were so absorbed with what they thought the top priority was that they failed to make sure he knew. Eddie was the one to sneak out his own window, risking the wrath of his mother, just to lay upside down on the dingy couch in the Tozier’s living room, chewing popcorn obnoxiously loud as he loudly theorized about whatever movie Richie was showing him that day, often horror films and thrillers that would only serve to keep them up far later into the night than was acceptable. Eddie is all the bits and pieces that Richie never knew he needed until they stumbled into each other’s lives. Eddie is the world.

But Bill… that’s always been a bit complicated. Bill, himself, is complicated—a joyful soul weighed down by guilt and self-served responsibility and the need to protect in the way he feels he failed to do for his brother. Richie is, perhaps, the only one who has ever properly understood the weight of that, the weight of stepping forward and taking the burden so that no one else has to know how heavy it is. Richie was always at the front of the group, or at the very back—strategically placed himself wherever was best to ensure that, if Bowers were to jump at them or danger were to round the corner, it would be him that was first approached, him that would become the time consuming distraction that could promise the escape of his friends. Richie was loud, louder than he ever needed to be, to draw the attention to him, the attention of bullies and judgement, allowing those he loved to hide in his shadow and safely flee. Richie blamed himself when he failed to be that person, when Eddie had bruises because he hadn’t been smart enough to anticipate the asshole from Algebra to corner them outside of gym, when Mike tried to hide a limp because a racist piece of shit had thrown things and spit slurs and Richie wasn’t there to block the hits, when Beverly’s voice was raw from having to raise her voice and draw eyes her way when a man in the park was trying to lure her away and Richie hadn’t been the idiotic gangly dumbass to throw the first punch just to make sure that the fucker would have a nose to nurse along with his stupid ego.

It’s something they shared, growing up—Bill and Richie shouldered these responsibilities by choice without thinking twice about it, made it priority to be the ones that kept their friends safe, in whatever ways that suited them best. Bill felt like the leader of them, Richie the protector.

So, when Bill pulls Richie into an embrace, when Bill lets out a rough sob and they both fall to their knees while clutching onto one another, it doesn’t even cross Richie’s mind about his odd anxiety about touch. Not to say that the anxiety is magically gone, but right now, it doesn’t matter, because his arms are wrapping around Bill’s waist and they’re leaning into one another and it feels like they’re those thirteen year old kids, terrified and weeping as they huddled into a group hug, Bill in the center, clutching onto the yellow rain coat and wailing in despair. Eddie drops to his knees beside them, hooks his chin over Richie’s shoulder and murmurs gently to him, to both of them, soothing words that don’t register in their brains, though his tone is enough to relax some of the tension in their shoulders. Stan is next to join them on the disgusting sewer floor, shuffles into them and presses his cheek to Bill’s temple and closes his eyes, one hand reaching for Mike, who is beside him in seconds, Beverly and Ben mere moments behind him as they all fall into each other like puzzle pieces, filling in spaces and gaps.

“I’m so—” Bill tries to say, but his voice is choppy and rough and his stutter is worse than it ever was as a kid, choked off and painful as he speaks. “I-I’m s-suh-so sor-r-ruh-ry, R-Richie.”

To some, it might seem out of place. Hell, to the rest of the losers, it probably seems a bit ill fitting, but Richie gets it. He’s heard about how Bill blamed himself when Richie went ‘missing,’ how he apparently swore to never let any of them end up on a missing poster after seeing how terrified both Richie and Eddie had been in Neibolt, when It had made the fake poster with Richie’s face. And, if he knows how Bill thinks—which Richie believes he does, no matter how long it’s been—then he knows all that guilt is rearing its head right now, screaming at him, making him think and feel these horrible things.

_I’m sorry,_ Bill keeps repeating, in a broken stutter that falls clumsy from his mouth. _I’m sorry for not believing you. I’m sorry for almost giving up on you. I’m sorry for not protecting you. I’m sorry for not being able to find you. I’m sorry that I let any of this happen in the first place. I’m sorry. I’m sorry._

Richie can’t find his voice to tell him that he doesn’t need to be, but he hugs him tighter and soaks in the warmth and the comfort of the losers surrounding them, and he hopes that it’s enough.

_at long last, love has arrive_

_and i thank god i’m alive_

California is even more beautiful when it’s alive.

Richie remembers thinking, at various point over all those years that he was traveling the country alone, that he wouldn’t mind living here. That, maybe, if he had been lucky enough to grow up normal, to grow up the way he was supposed to—with his parents, with the losers, going to college and maybe dropping out and getting a job and having to pay rent in a shitty little apartment that was too small to do much of anything other than breathe—then he might have, eventually, moved here. Where it was sunny and bright, where the waves crashed on sandy beaches and people could relax on the shore.

He remembers finding it stunning, even as a ghost town—with the cars abandoned in the roads and in parking lots, building aged from the lack of upkeep, overgrown and taken back by nature.

It’s almost overwhelming, the fact that he actually lives here now.

“I should get a job,” he says, no more than a month since him and Eddie moved into an apartment near L.A. together, only about five and a half months since he was miraculously brought back to the real world, since they defeated It and slept for nearly twenty four hours in the aftermath.

Eddie looks up from where he’s scrolling through his phone, brows raised, feet kicked up in Richie’s lap and a bowl of popcorn in his own. “Do you think you’re ready for that?”

Which is a fair question, because… it’s a lot, really. Going from the only person in the world to just another speck in the population of billions is more overwhelming than Richie could ever possibly put into words. He feels like he’s adjusting pretty well, but there’s not really anything else to compare it to, to know if he’s actually doing a good job at settling back into everything like he is. He frowns, looks down at his ankles that are crossed on top of the coffee table, and shrugs. “I don’t know. But… I know the bills aren’t cheap, and you’re paying everything, Eds. Literally, everything, and… I hate not helping out.”

There’s a small lapse of silence, where Eddie seems to ponder those words, before he sets the popcorn bowl on the coffee table and moves, shifts, until he’s quite literally sitting in Richie’s lap and ducking his head to maintain eye contact. “Tozier,” he says, voice serious in a way that’s obviously played up for entertainment. It makes Richie’s lips twitch, just a bit, at the ends. “I own a company, alright? Don’t fucking ask me how, or when, I managed to do that, but I’m quite literally raking in money because I founded this stupid company that’s just a glorified Uber service for rich people that want limos and privacy when they’re being driven around by people in stupid suits. And it’s an app now, too, which makes it accessible all over the country, and we’re working on spreading that even further so that’s an available service all over the world, which means that—these bills? They’re nothing, Rich. And I know that might sound weird or—or entitled, or something, but… I’ve never been more happy to have somehow managed to make all this money, because that means I can easily afford all of this and _that_ means that I can make sure you have all the time you need to adjust to… to all of this.”

A bitter taste forms on Richie’s tongue. “Adjust to being normal again, you mean?”

“Rich…” Eddie trails off, his brows furrowing together as he shakes his head, hands reaching up to cup Richie’s face in his palms. “The hell do you wanna be normal for, huh? Normal _sucks.”_ Richie snorts, can’t really help it, but hangs onto every word when Eddie goes on to say, “What I mean is time to adjust to the world again. To get comfortable in it, and then to find your place. If you’re ready to get a job and go out there, then I’m gonna support you through that—hell, we all are, and you know that. But if you’re not ready to be back in the crowds and all of that, then don’t force yourself to, okay? Take your time, Richie. However much you need. And how much time you need is only your decision to make.”

None of this is new, really—Eddie has told Richie this before. Bill told him, too, and so did Mike, Beverly, Ben, even Audra and Patty have talked to him gently about how it’s his own pace that he gets to set and be in control of. Stan wasn’t as gentle about it—only because Stan knows Richie in ways that no one else really does, knows that there’s a time for being gentle and a time for being blunt, and when Richie had murmured about feeling too slow and like a burden to the rest of them, Stan had looked him dead in the eyes and told him, “Don’t be fucking stupid, Tozier.” And that had been all Richie needed to hear in the moment, because he had cracked a smile and accepted the can of sprite that Stan tossed him, and they had moved on without a single problem, Richie’s doubts (temporarily) pushed aside.

Eddie brushes his thumb over Richie’s cheekbone. “Talk to me, Rich. Please.”

With a soft sigh, Richie looks away. He was never good at lying to Eddie when they were kids, and it only seems to be even more true now, so he doesn’t even bother. “I don’t think I’m ready,” he says slowly, brows lowering, eyes squinted as he stares off to the right of Eddie, just to not have to look him in the eyes quite yet. “But, I just… I feel so far behind the rest of you, and I know it’s because I am. Because I… I didn’t get the chance to—to develop, how I was supposed to, you know? And now Bill is married to Audra, and Mike and Stan have Patty, Beverly and Ben, and they all have kids, and… and you were married, too, Eds, and sometimes I feel like I never got the chance to—to actually grow up, y’know?”

“Well, you didn’t,” Eddie says simply—so simply that Richie can’t really help when he quickly looks back to him in mild surprise. “You were seventeen when It took your life away from you, Rich. You didn’t get the chance to go to college, or have job interviews, or anything like that. We didn’t get the chance to have our college style romance that we were supposed to have. The world was ripped out from under you, and now you’re trying to find your footing again after getting it all back, and you’ve already come so far, you know that? When Mike picked you up, you weren’t talking, you weren’t touching anyone or letting anyone touch you, and now—now we go to the grocery store together, and sometimes, on a bad day, you might tense up if someone brushes up against you or something, but for the most part, it can be hard to tell that you haven’t been here all along, and it hasn’t even been six months yet. That’s incredible, Richie. Some people—most people, I think—would have taken years to come as far as you have, and that’s only if they were strong enough to survive as long as you did in that hellhole. Not only did you survive, but you made it back, however the hell that happened, and… and you might be behind on some things, sure, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of, Rich. When you’re ready, you’ll catch up. One step at a time, you know? Whatever step you’re ready for, you’ll take it when you’re ready.”

“You just said _ready_ way too much,” Richie points out, mostly because he isn’t all that sure of what else there is to say. Eddie rolls his eyes, but he presses a lingering kiss to Richie’s cheek and smiles at him with the softness of someone who is looking at the person they love most in the world. Richie knows he is looking right back with that very softness shining in his eyes. It makes his chest feel warm and the dark corners of his brain weep with the reminder of how much he wished for this while spending all those years alone, how many times he cried over the love he thought he would never get to have.

There must be something in his eyes, because Eddie shakes his head. “Think less. It’s alright.”

“I did nothing but think for twenty three years,” Richie says.

It’s a flash, only there for a moment, but something heartbroken crosses Eddie’s features, like it always does at the reminder of what Richie went through. As fast as it shows up, however, it’s gone, and then Eddie is bopping a finger against Richie’s nose and saying, “Exactly. You thought enough for ten lifetimes, and now you get to think less, so tell your head to shut up and let your heart talk, yeah?”

Richie has never been good with words. He says, “I love you a whole fuckin’ lot, Eds.”

“Yeah, I know,” Eddie replies. “And I love you a lot, too.”

“No, I mean—” Richie stops, because he isn’t really sure what he means, not really. There’s a flurry of incoherent thoughts and sentences swirling around in his head and making him dizzy, for a moment, but he keeps looking at Eddie until that dizziness fades away. “I wanna catch up,” is what he settles on, eventually, because it’s what makes the most sense to him. “I wanna catch up with you.”

The statement, though vague, seems to click pretty quickly in Eddie’s head. His eyes go wide, brows raising, sounding a bit breathless. “You mean, like… like…?”

Richie nods, slow and timid. “The losers, they… they’re all married. Eds. They have kids.”

“And you—”

“I want,” Richie says, finding the courage to keep it blunt, “to marry you. I always have.”

Eddie looks at Richie like he’s looking at the universe, like he’s staring at the meaning of life, to meaning for happiness and love and joy, and he grins. “Christ, Tozier,” he says with a breathless little laugh. “You have no fucking idea how long I’ve been wanting to hear you say that.”

_pardon the way that i stare_

_there’s nothing else to compare_

In another life, they might have done it differently.

There would have been a proper ceremony, with a crowd of friends and family, each one dabbing at the tears in their eyes as vows were exchanged, long and lovely and heartfelt. Richie would have made a few jokes in his, and Eddie would have snorted when he said them, and then Eddie could have cursed his way through his own in a way that would make Richie laugh, loud and bright. They would have had a big cake, and a dance floor, and the expensive kind of suits that take a few months to save up for, because it was their wedding day and they wanted it all to be perfect and extravagant, like they deserve.

In this life, though, it’s everything that Richie wants—it’s him and Eddie, and it’s the losers, with their kids, in a Las Vegas chapel, all dressed up in the dumbest outfits possible. That had been Eddie’s idea, when they were trying to think of _how_ they wanted to get married, and he had finally shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t need fancy, Rich. I just need you.”

Richie had felt all ooey-gooey, even as he asked, “What if I dressed like a cowboy?”

“Then I’d dress like—like, I dunno, fuckin’ Buzz Lightyear, or something,” Eddie had responded. “And then we’d both look ridiculous, and then we’d still get married anyway.”

Which is why Richie has a stupid looking and overly flashy pink cowboy hat on, paired with just as bright books that jingle a bit when he walks. Eddie has a soft Buzz Lightyear onesie on, comfy as all help but just as dumb looking as Richie, and they’re both beaming with wide, painfully cheesy grins.

It’s a quick process, all legalities, a short substitution for a ceremony. When asked to state their vows, Eddie just says, “I don’t mind looking stupid when I’m with you. And I want to feel that forever.”

Richie doesn’t know what to say in response, and he just nods. He doesn’t need to do more.

In the parking lot, Eddie pulls out his phone, plays a song as loud as he can, and hands it to Bill to hold up. It isn’t fancy or official or glamorous, but they have their first dance to the only song that has ever fit them so well, to the one that Richie once listened to while hammered in a bar, the one that played at Bill and Audra’s wedding—had made Eddie leave in a hurry because of how much his heart ached.

_the sight of you leaves me weak_

_there are no words left to speak_

“When Bill and Audra got married,” Eddie murmurs, lips inches from Richie’s ear as they sway in a vacant parking spot under the light of a streetlamp, “I promised myself that, if I ever got the chance, I’d tell you how much I admired your ability to make things funny. Even during the hard times. Don’t think I remembered to tell you that after you got back, so—there it is, I guess.”

Richie doesn’t respond for a moment, just sways with Eddie, enjoying the moment. Then, voice softer than it likely ever has been, he says, “I went to Disneyland, once. Tried to imagine all of you guys there, tried to picture what you all look like when you were older, and I remember thinking about how lonely I felt, and how, if it were you, you would have made it a challenge. Like a game, or something. You would have turned it into something that would have made it more bearable. And I remember wishing that I was more like you, ‘cause I couldn’t do that. I could only feel more and more alone.”

Eddie holds on tighter where their hands are linked, fingers intertwined. “I hate that you had to go through that,” he whispers. “I wish—God, Rich, I wish I could have at least been there with you.”

“I don’t,” Richie admits. “You would have hated it. I’m glad you got to grow up right.”

Eddie shakes his head. “It wasn’t right. Not without you.”

_but if you feel like i feel_

_please let me know that it’s real_

That night, they’re in a hotel room—somewhere a little bit pricey, because they’re married, now, and even if they didn’t have a proper wedding, they still deserve a little something. There’s a movie that’s playing on the TV that neither of them are watching, and Richie feels nothing but love.

In another life, it would have been different.

In this life, though, it’s absolutely perfect.


End file.
